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[dolores]

Spoiler: Mafia Theory/OOC meta stuff in reply to Jim (click to show/hide)

Have you considered that maybe you're bad at arguing your case? It's not uncommon (and actually quite frequent) that town players mislynch other town players despite both players best and earnest efforts. Stubbornly asserting that any other player will find you town after sufficient engagement with you is naïve.

Have you considered that maybe you're bad at town/scumhunting? It's not doubtful (it's actually a certainty) that from sufficiently large tracts of interaction, the intentions of the author will emerge as visible. If the players are worse, it'll take longer, but it'll still happen so long as people are willing to sit down and do the work (exhaustive, grinding walls of text and all).

This isn't true, otherwise town would never mislynch each other, even in games where walls of text are the norm.

This is true and town never mislynch each other in games where every player produces good walls of text.
Most walls of text aren't good. They're either the same idea repeated over and over and over (I'm guilty of this because it's more important to me to do the idea justice, which takes me many attempts to do poorly, than it is to have a brief and ergonomic post. If I was a better player, I'd be able to put the idea down in a concise form without losing any essential element, but as it stands I think I can do a better job by attempting to convey the idea in full than I could at cutting it down without destroying it's character, so you get the ugly walls of text) or they're purely meta/mechanical/etc. stuff which comes basically out of out of game disagreements and mistakes. Outside of super compelling cases on obvious scum where there's just enough evidence to support a supermassive wall of text pointing at all the aspects of their guilt (in which case it should have been established and they should already be being about to be lynched in almost any game), the only real legitimate walls of text that relate to the game that you generally see are when a new player make a mistake and get called on it and then need to work through every aspect of their reasoning in full and there's actually something to come to grips with, and in that case the alignment of the player writing the wall of text (the new player) is clear as day and they're either never getting mislynched (if town) or very definitely getting lynched (as scum).
When I say sufficiently large tracts of interaction, I mean that most players would need to be grinding through ideas with each other for several hours a day for weeks. 'Sufficiently large' goes down as the level of analysis goes up, and gets larger the more true to life the method acting of the scum gets. It so happens that I'm a worse scum than I am town (relatively), such that I'm confident I could read my own alignment in most games within 72hrs, but I'd guess that doesn't apply to everyone.

Jim: any thoughts on 4maskwolf? And nobody strikes you as particularly town?

[Vector]

No. You know what? Fuck it. This isn't a case, but I finally have a good solid scumtell, so here it is and I can get to the rest of this tomorrow morning.

As you all know, Toony hasn't been posting that much or that involved. Then he posts a big 'ol wall of text. Part of that wall is of particular interest to me.

I'm going to bold people I've interacted with more, feel free to point out anything.

Reads, from most town to most scum:

ToonyMan, I'm town
gap
Heydude - contract logic, is also giving huge reads on everyone which I like
Luckyowl - newb
NJW2000 - I think we're getting some good insight out of them...hopefully
Nirur Torir - seems okay?
Vector - feel like they're buddying me, does throw shade on me, but seems calculated
dolores - typing a lot of words, don't know, does claim a secondary wincon
NQT - pretty quiet, he'd do a vote analysis regardless, scum lean
Toaster - same boat as Vector, I think they're more suspicious but I agree with their IcyTea argument
4maskwolf - seems like they're trying? scum lean
Juicebox - barely know they exist, scum lean
IcyTea - dumbly voted themselves, contract logic makes me more suspicious of them then Heydude, feel like they're lying a lot
UristofFallacy - playing bad should know better?
Jim Groovester - lazy lazy lazy
Leafsnail - too quiet, hiding something?
TricMagic - has no interest in the town, defeatist logic that everyone voting them is scum, don't do this


Sure. If I had to pick the 4 person mafia team right now it'd be one of two sets:

The obvious team:
Leafsnail, Jim Groovester, UristofFallacy, IcyTea

The wildcard team:
Leafsnail, IcyTea, Vector or dolores, Toaster or Vector

OK, so I want to draw your attention to a few points.

1. There is not a lot of evidence mentioned in relationship to this list. For example, I honestly can't recall anything I ever said that could be remotely construed as "buddying." The "seems calculated part," sure, I calculate. Point is: not a lot of evidence mentioned for the first player Toony is claiming to have scummy behavior. You can examine the rest of the list yourself.

2. Having assembled a lot of these lists as scum in my day, one of the key things you want to do is characterize people broadly as scummy without pointing to specific actions and posts. This covers your butt on later days ("I'm suspicious of everyone, that's why I don't have cases! Sure, let's join another bandwagon", or alternatively "funny how my suspects keep flipping town, how annoying, but you must recall that so-and-so did something scummy a long time ago as I mentioned"). It also helps you keep out of the spotlight by not saying too much. People can't use your lists to figure out who your buddies are because you say that everyone is suspicious.

3. Check the proposed scumteams vs. who has a "scum lean" in Toony's list. The claim is that NQT, 4mask, and juicebox have a scum lean and that ICT is lying a lot. Of these four, only one made the list of proposed scumteams. He also manages to suggest that 7 out of 16 players are his candidates for being on the teams he mentions. In the process, he points the finger at every veteran player other than himself.

-> Making a mechanical point: This is an advantage for the scum because vets, if town-aligned, are the most likely to catch them. Suggesting that all the vets are scum without any reasoning attached muddies the water handily. The reality is that we need to catch 4 people, not 7 or, what, 10. Note again that there was no reasoning offered for his scum squads and that the vets are spread out pretty broadly on Toony's read list, so their concentration on his scumteam lists is pretty strange.

-> Making a meta point: Please recall what Toonyman is famous for, the Toony Tunnel. Note that "calling everyone scum" is quite literally the opposite of that.

4. Along those lines, check who Toony has been interacting with and voting vs. who has a "scum lean" in Toony's list. He's been allowing a hell of a lot to slide.

5. We've all claimed that it would be better to lynch scum than a third party D1 if we can do it. Toony apparently has a strong belief that ICT and Leafsnail are scum. Jim and FallacyofUrist make up the other two pieces of, in his point of view, an "obvious" scumteam. There is, frankly, enough evidence to hang FoU ten times over if Toony were actually motivated to do anything about the "obvious scum." ICT was the main focus of discussion for a long time. Why is he still voting Tric?


Toonyman.

[Jim Groovester]

Spoiler: Mafia Theory/OOC meta stuff in reply to Jim (click to show/hide)

Have you considered that maybe you're bad at arguing your case? It's not uncommon (and actually quite frequent) that town players mislynch other town players despite both players best and earnest efforts. Stubbornly asserting that any other player will find you town after sufficient engagement with you is naïve.

Have you considered that maybe you're bad at town/scumhunting? It's not doubtful (it's actually a certainty) that from sufficiently large tracts of interaction, the intentions of the author will emerge as visible. If the players are worse, it'll take longer, but it'll still happen so long as people are willing to sit down and do the work (exhaustive, grinding walls of text and all).

This isn't true, otherwise town would never mislynch each other, even in games where walls of text are the norm.

This is true and town never mislynch each other in games where every player produces good walls of text.
Most walls of text aren't good. They're either the same idea repeated over and over and over (I'm guilty of this because it's more important to me to do the idea justice, which takes me many attempts to do poorly, than it is to have a brief and ergonomic post. If I was a better player, I'd be able to put the idea down in a concise form without losing any essential element, but as it stands I think I can do a better job by attempting to convey the idea in full than I could at cutting it down without destroying it's character, so you get the ugly walls of text) or they're purely meta/mechanical/etc. stuff which comes basically out of out of game disagreements and mistakes. Outside of super compelling cases on obvious scum where there's just enough evidence to support a supermassive wall of text pointing at all the aspects of their guilt (in which case it should have been established and they should already be being about to be lynched in almost any game), the only real legitimate walls of text that relate to the game that you generally see are when a new player make a mistake and get called on it and then need to work through every aspect of their reasoning in full and there's actually something to come to grips with, and in that case the alignment of the player writing the wall of text (the new player) is clear as day and they're either never getting mislynched (if town) or very definitely getting lynched (as scum).
When I say sufficiently large tracts of interaction, I mean that most players would need to be grinding through ideas with each other for several hours a day for weeks. 'Sufficiently large' goes down as the level of analysis goes up, and gets larger the more true to life the method acting of the scum gets. It so happens that I'm a worse scum than I am town (relatively), such that I'm confident I could read my own alignment in most games within 72hrs, but I'd guess that doesn't apply to everyone.

Ah, I see, no true wall of text exchange would ever result in a town mislynch. I am both humbled and illuminated.

More seriously, I think that's an unrealistically high standard of play to expect from a forum mafia game and I don't think many people could meet that standard or come close. Ten years in the past I might've come close, but I had a lot more fire then.

Jim: any thoughts on 4maskwolf? And nobody strikes you as particularly town?

Not especially. He hasn't really made much of an impression on me, even acknowledging that he allegedly suspects me.

Nobody gives me a hugely solid town read. That said, I don't mind your play, ToonyMan's play, or Toaster's play. heydude6 is wrong about a lot of stuff but reads most solid to me. Luckyowl is as baffling as he was in Bastard Paranormal 3 but that wasn't a traditional mafia game so the read isn't equivalent.

[IcyTea31]

You didn't address my concerns about you being defensive at all.

You're making no effort to pressure the people you claim as scum reads, as well.

I think we either have different definitions of "addressing concerns" and "pressuring people" or you're not reading my posts.

And I did make a reads list of sorts (quoted below), it just wasn't stated directly and clearly. I think you're mafia (75%) or some sort of hydra cult (25%).

I'm okay with a Tric lynch if we can't find scum, but I'd prefer to lynch a mafia player. The people I named in blue earlier still seem like the best place to start looking.

"People I named in blue" isn't much a split, since you've named 10 people in red. What happened to those other cases?

I no longer think your "slip" was actually a scum slip, and that's why I voted you.  I don't have any substantive reasons to suspect you any more.

Scans well enough, and I'm starting to realize what it is you've been doing. It's a pretty outdated technique, but still town. Unvote

Can you tell me the name Webadict gave to one of my ability?

No, but if the name of the ability you gave has nothing to do with the lyrics of any famous song from the seventies, you know that it's changed.

Reads, from most town to most scum:

ToonyMan, I'm town
gap
Heydude - contract logic, is also giving huge reads on everyone which I like
Luckyowl - newb
NJW2000 - I think we're getting some good insight out of them...hopefully
Nirur Torir - seems okay?
Vector - feel like they're buddying me, does throw shade on me, but seems calculated
dolores - typing a lot of words, don't know, does claim a secondary wincon
NQT - pretty quiet, he'd do a vote analysis regardless, scum lean
Toaster - same boat as Vector, I think they're more suspicious but I agree with their IcyTea argument
4maskwolf - seems like they're trying? scum lean
Juicebox - barely know they exist, scum lean
IcyTea - dumbly voted themselves, contract logic makes me more suspicious of them then Heydude, feel like they're lying a lot
UristofFallacy - playing bad should know better?
Jim Groovester - lazy lazy lazy
Leafsnail - too quiet, hiding something?
TricMagic - has no interest in the town, defeatist logic that everyone voting them is scum, don't do this

Are there really only 5 townies?

IcyTea still has not moved their vote from Toaster, and it's nearing the final part of the first Day. Surely there's a better option by now, or more evidence to vote Toaster to use?

Why, yes there is! This will take a bit.

[IcyTea31]

Ah, I see, no true wall of text exchange would ever result in a town mislynch. I am both humbled and illuminated.

More seriously, I think that's an unrealistically high standard of play to expect from a forum mafia game and I don't think many people could meet that standard or come close. Ten years in the past I might've come close, but I had a lot more fire then.

I don't expect people to meet that standard. I expect people to want to meet that standard.

[dolores]

Spoiler: More irrelevant meta (click to show/hide)

I think that's an unrealistically high standard of play to expect from a forum mafia game and I don't think many people could meet that standard or come close.

That's the standard I'd like to hold myself to. For Toaster (and others asking me about lynching lurkers), it's the fact that I can't do this (theoretically be able to discern people's alignments) in games where both townies and scum are inactive that fills me with such spite and vitriol towards people who don't post and complain about activity. For sure, it's a sin on my part to reduce the activity of these players in any way, and insomuch as I am able to I am obligated not to do so, but if I'm unable to find the alignment of every active player in the game no matter how hard I strive every ounce of effort I do put into the game is going to go towards that cause (finding scum) and the idea of a game where I have to compromise in that regard is so distasteful that historically in most cases I've just walked, with or without telling the mod that I am doing so. Crazy closed setups make it harder so I dislike it (I'm not so good that I want to play with a handicap just yet) but it's impossible in a bastard which is why I've never signed up to one.
Anyways.
I was really expecting like ghosts to be able to post in this setup or something. I'm kinda amazed the (extended) peanut gallery aren't active in the thread.

ICT

Everyone: Why am I self-voting?

Here's a longer answer if you're interested.

Spoiler: An extended commentary on my reads, expected future reads, and other metacontext surrounding ICT specifically (not important (it's an answer to an RVS question I already answered)) (click to show/hide)

I've got a longer and more intimate set of experience with ICT in mafia games than I do with anyone else here except maybe webadict, but no, ICT is my contemporary and the person who's either developed a lot of the 'new meta' stuff people have been complaining about or who I've tested it against (where it was mine).

So here's what I was thinking when I saw ICT self-vote in RVS, and what I've hoped would come of it, what has come of it (and what interfered with it), and what I expect to come from it. I'm sure a lot of you have noticed that I've barely if at all interacted with ICT (I answered him in RVS and he didn't follow up on me), and that's because he never set his trap for me and I've never thought that he's probably scum in this game so I've had other work to do that was more essential that I did.
ICT's self vote belongs to the general form of RVS gambits which have the following flow: the (town)gambit-player does something which only disrupts the play of those people that respond directly to it/follow up on it. This creates both attention and a pretense for players to go after them. In order to make the gambit work, the gambit-player has to continue to aggravate the issue, which will eventually motivate people to go after them for it. Since the gambit-player is town, anyone who engages with an earnest dialogue with them in good faith will eventually realize that they are town.
The best case scenario is that someone will try to construct a fallacious case on the gambit-player and push it through on the back of the gathered attention. This bad-faith wagon can then be attacked for bad logic and the scum responsible for it gone after.
Alternatively, someone will try to follow along with their legitimate concerns raised by the gambit and lose sight halfway of the fact that they shouldn't already know that the gambit-player is town, and will make a traditional scumslip. This can be distinguished from town players because town players will have a halfway case where they begrudgingly give up ground until running out of points to complain over. This is sort of what happened with Toaster except it's super undeveloped for reasons I'll get into, but I think this kind of townie-originated case would waver similarly to my post towards heydude6 (whether you consider me town or scum should only change whether you consider this a genuine or artificial example; you can still see what I mean inability to push forward (that's maybe not a good example, but you know what I mean)).

First off, does this make ICT town? No. He's obligated to do this if he thinks that's what people think his daymeta is. What would make ICT town is someone going after him (for perfectly valid reasons) and not being able to make a case work despite their best efforts, especially if they're a strong player whose alignment is uncertain and the insight that their case gives us into them gives us a strong read of them and ICT both. What I was really waiting for was for Toony to go after ICT in a big way, because I had my doubts about Toony (or Toaster or Jim, but Toony seemed the most likely) but could easily go either way on him, and I thought he'd be able to do a good enough job that he'd either make a case that gains some ground (if ICT was scum) or reveal himself as scum, or make a case that falls apart in an organic way if both were town. Then I'd have a strong start-of-D1-read on ICT and a strong D1 read on ToonyMan and life would be great, so I didn't say anything except that I was waiting for something like that to happen.

Instead, heydude6 get's dayactioned or whatever. ICT is the center of attention and heydude6 thinks of a way that he can get an insight into ICT, so he fingers ICT. ICT either rolls with this or gets dayactioned at the same time. We get an extended dialogue from heydude6 about ICT, but since it is artificial it doesn't reflect on ICT and instead all I get out of it is a townread on ICT. We're way past RVS now, so there's no followup to ICT's selfvote that's going to come out of it (and he has a history in the game that isn't of his own manufacture, so it isn't the controlled space to trap scum with anyhow).
Probably the best thing we got out of ICT's RVS was Vector's interactions with them, which are a strong part of why I like Vector's RVS as a townread.

Now, what I'd expect from ICT either way is to end D1 on a strong case. I've been writing up till now since before this post above, but like I said I need a longform case out of ICT. In an ideal world, town!ICT baits scum in RVS in early-day-1 then ends day1 with a case on that scum. Whatever. I've got 2-3 scum I've got enough of a feeling about to write serious cases on, so ICT does too and I expect to see something good from him out of it; and if he can't substantiate that despite being here, I'm going to waver past the halfway mark in my opinion on his alignment, because outside of a meta-issue which physically limits his ability to contribute to the game (he's busy) I do expect better from him.

The form of 'voting myself in RVS', whether ICT considers this true or not, seems archaic. It's an old form of the same meta-gambit, which existed in at least that form in the times when Jim/Toaster/Vector/etc. were active, and I imagine it was tailored to try and get a response out of them.

Cos you don't really know people's meta, the fossil players are more likely to give strong reactions to this kind of uncreative RVS drudgery, you're too lazy(/tired) to write something more useful, and you don't think/know I'll be taking up the space with some edgy 'gambit' shit with particularly high confidence so the space was likely going underutilized.

All of these are still true, but I didn't elaborate on this as much as I could have at the time. Here's your longform answer, nerd. Insomuch as the above (my long response) is accurate, my awareness of such makes me unable to buy into scenario enough for it to give you any insight into my alignment because I won't (be able to) engage with you properly over it. I question why you aren't doing anything to try to find my alignment, but I mean I've been leaving you on autopilot to deal with your own shit since I don't especially think you're scum and I'm busy and have hoped to see something out of your existing dramas and I assume you don't particularly think I'm scum so are probably doing something similar back.


Also, I'm surprised he didn't spend more time away from the game on christmas but maybe he did and just has had a busy time, whatever.
While I was writing all my ToonyMan stuff I noticed this post, which I think is super towny btw.

So how about that ToonyMan?
I still like his RVS posts.
His interactions with me coming out of RVS still feel suspicious, in a way where he's not really seeing what I'm saying and more just attacking a strawman. He does something similar with ICT too, though in that case he's more correct in that he'd have to go out of his way to consider possible reasons ICT was doing what he was doing besides wasting peoples time and I do think ICT was being lazy and lame about it in RVS. But this I can easily see as him(/me) just being an asshole and assuming someone to be wrong without actually having a fair dialogue and I don't think the whole thing is worth the time it'd take to unravel and he can always back out of it so I think I'm going to definitely leave it. These (RVS interactions) are where my earliest suspicions of ToonyMan since before the heydude saga are from, if you are wondering.

Thankfully this case isn't based on a lack of scumhunting so I only need to go through the relevant dialogue. Spoilers are each a call-response in the Toony-NJW chain.

Spoiler: P1 (click to show/hide)

@Heydude:

In other words, someone just maliciously targeted me with a day action. It was at 10:02:06 pm, which is 1 minute and 2 seconds after Toaster's post. I think I must have been doing too good of job as town then.
Who do you think is the most likely suspect?

This strikes me as anti-mafia. A scum member would definitely be cautious and check it over first with their buddies, if they even decided to say anything at all, before giving information to the town. I don't think Heydude is mafia, and probably not malicious either.

This is the slip. There's an implicit assumption that heydude is town, a statement that doesn't contradict that, then the fact that heydude is town is drawn from it. The problem is that it doesn't prove heydude is town, which NJW catches.
At the time of this post I was already convinced that heydude6 was town. The post I came to that conclusion in is a little above ToonyMan's post and laboriously long. However, ToonyMan never references any kind of reasoning besides the logically incoherent quote above as to why he thinks heydude6 is town; he has no public reason to have already reached that conclusion, and if the quoted reasoning was the basis of his assumption he would caught the fact that it is flawed before posting such a strong read.

Spoiler: P2 (click to show/hide)

Toonyman:

[Heydude's claim to have been targeted] strikes me as anti-mafia. A scum member would definitely be cautious and check it over first with their buddies, if they even decided to say anything at all, before giving information to the town. I don't think Heydude is mafia, and probably not malicious either.

And how, pray, do you know Heydude didn't check it over with their buddies before making the post?

Before you start, anything you say about timings is unlikely to convince me. He could very easily have lied about when he recieved the PM, it's not difficult. Even if he didn't, there's still fifteen minutes between him getting the PM and posting stuff to the thread, ample time for a quick discussion. Yet you're sure he didn't cautiously check it over with his buddies. Even if the mod PM had a time (distasteful metagame stuff here) he could very well have edited that.

Besides, getting targeted is basically non-incriminating, and at least the person who used the ability on HeyDude would know they'd used it, so scum!Heydude wouldn't be very smart to pretend it never happened, would they? It's pretty clear that honesty would be the obvious approach. Yet you're so sure he did post at once, and that this is town-ish behaviour.

This suggests one or more of:
       a) you're behind the contracts, and know the timings of when you sent them
       b) you know heydude didn't discuss it with a scumteam because you're scum (an unlikely slip, I'll allow)
       c) you're not actually thinking hard about the event, just posting about it
       d) you are so completely certain that heydude is town that you assumed it would be universally accepted that he gave the town the info immediately
       e) you actually want us to engage with the WIFOM of "scum!Heydude wouldn't immediately give town the information, so heydude is town"


Regardless of the kerfuffle around Heydude's post, all of these possibilities are rather suspect. As is the fact that you're apparently buddying/townreading someone on the basis of a weak and easily faked "towntell" - or to give you your euphemistic due, "anti-mafia and probably not malicious"-tell.

What gives, Toony?

@NJW2000:

What gives, Toony?

Are you reading the thread? Unless Heydude and IcyTea are bussing each other (which I highly highly doubt on Day 1), they both claim a PM "a couple minutes" from each other:

Unfortunately, though I did get a mafia reaction eventually (which I am proud of), it wasn't through a post but through an anonymous day action, leaving you as the only person to attack me and be read.

Saying once more because it's important: this didn't happen. I received my PM before you made that post, and only a couple minutes after time you said you received it.

In my opinion, this makes it incredibly unlikely they're on the same team.

When NJW2000 calls ToonyMan out on his inconsistent logic, rather than walking back the read, ToonyMan attacks the response without responding to the comments of the logic. For the record, I think that NJW's logic is correct, but that's not what bothers me about Toony's post here.
Toony's response is to shift the goalposts of the heydude6 townread to the assertion that heydude6 is not on the same team as ICT. These things are only equivalent if ICT is unequivocally scum, and yet ToonyMan moves his vote from one player that is not ICT to another player that is not ICT.
ToonyMan's response does not address the accusation that his assumption that heydude6 is not supported by the logic of his first post, and instead brings up a non-sequitur.

Spoiler: P3 (click to show/hide)

Toonyman:

Unvote Dolores.

@NJW2000:

What gives, Toony?

Are you reading the thread? Unless Heydude and IcyTea are bussing each other (which I highly highly doubt on Day 1), they both claim a PM "a couple minutes" from each other:

Unfortunately, though I did get a mafia reaction eventually (which I am proud of), it wasn't through a post but through an anonymous day action, leaving you as the only person to attack me and be read.

Saying once more because it's important: this didn't happen. I received my PM before you made that post, and only a couple minutes after time you said you received it.

In my opinion, this makes it incredibly unlikely they're on the same team.

I won't even bother with the idea that they're on the same scumteam, if you think it's so unlikely. In any case: IcyTea claims the PMs weren't even sent at the same time, rather at least a couple of minutes apart. There's definitely the possibility that heydude was sent his even earlier. Also, even if IcyTea can be considered to have 100% confirmed that heydude was completely truthful about the times, the following logic holds:

There's still fifteen minutes between him getting the PM and posting stuff to the thread, ample time for a quick discussion. Yet you're sure he didn't cautiously check it over with his buddies. Besides, getting targeted is basically non-incriminating, and at least the person who used the ability on HeyDude would know they'd used it, so scum!Heydude wouldn't be very smart to pretend it never happened, would they? It's pretty clear that honesty would be the obvious approach. Yet you're so sure that this is town-ish behaviour.

This suggests one or more of:
       a) you're behind the contracts, and know the timings of when you sent them
       b) you know heydude didn't discuss it with a scumteam because you're scum (an unlikely slip, I'll allow)
       c) you're not actually thinking hard about the event, just posting about it
       d) you are so completely certain that heydude is town that you assumed it would be universally accepted that he gave the town the info immediately
       e) you actually want us to engage with the WIFOM of "scum!Heydude wouldn't immediately give town the information, so heydude is town"


Regardless of the kerfuffle around Heydude's post, all of these possibilities are rather suspect. As is the fact that you're apparently buddying/townreading someone on the basis of a weak "towntell" - or to give you your euphemistic due, "anti-mafia and probably not malicious"-tell.

So Toonyman, why is rapidly sharing information someone else has anyway indicative that the sharer is town?

@NJW2000:

In any case: IcyTea claims the PMs weren't even sent at the same time, rather at least a couple of minutes apart. There's definitely the possibility that heydude was sent his even earlier. Also, even if IcyTea can be considered to have 100% confirmed that heydude was completely truthful about the times, the following logic holds

I think I can see what you're saying. Let me try to break this down:

Case 1:
1. Heydude is the contract sender
2. Heydude sends a contract to IcyTea and then claims he was targeted as well
3. Heydude fakes a contract that incriminates IcyTea, nearly getting him modkilled
4. IcyTea obviously calls him out for lying
5. Heydude backs down off IcyTea

I think this is more likely than Case 2. Heydude could be town or mafia here, but I don't believe this right now.

Case 2:
1. The contract sender is someone else, possibly on a scum team with Heydude
2. Heydude "receives" the contract earlier than he claims, possibly coordinates with his buddies first
3. Heydude pretends to flip out and creates a fake PM that incriminates IcyTea, nearly getting him modkilled
4. IcyTea also claims to have received a contract, obviously calls Heydude out for lying, is able to verify the contents
5. Heydude backs down off IcyTea

This only makes sense if Heydude is scum, but I don't believe this is true either. It implies Heydude and the contract sender are on the same team, and it makes their actions baffling just to take down IcyTea, who was already a lynch candidate.

So Toonyman, why is rapidly sharing information someone else has anyway indicative that the sharer is town?

My impression from Heydude's panicking is that he didn't know anyone else had that information and wanted to help town ASAP, did you know?

We've moved totally past the original slip here, but ToonyMan is continuing to presuppose that heydude6 is town without really thinking about it. (For the record, ToonyMan's second point is entirely correct).
Specifically, we've gone from:

A scum member would definitely be cautious and check it over first with their buddies, if they even decided to say anything at all, before giving information to the town. I don't think Heydude is mafia, and probably not malicious either.

to

This only makes sense if Heydude is scum, but I don't believe this is true either. It implies Heydude and the contract sender are on the same team, and it makes their actions baffling just to take down IcyTea, who was already a lynch candidate.

We've achieved full circular logic. ToonyMan knows that heydude6 isn't (in a team with the player who is) the contract sender because that would only make sense if heydude6 is scum, so heydude6 is very likely not scum.

The last/most recent section of their dialogue is a very milquetoast response which I'd assume is an attempt to move past the whole thing since Toony knows how bad it looks and not important to my argument. I've included it below only for the sake of completeness.

Spoiler: P4 (click to show/hide)

Toonyman:

-[-spoiler=spoilered for brevity-]-
-[-/-spoiler-]-

This all very reasonable. On consideration, I think I'd agree. However, the possibility that Heydude was the contract sender wasn't what I was getting at - although I'll have to think about it. My main concern is this:

So Toonyman, why is rapidly sharing information someone else has anyway indicative that the sharer is town?

My impression from Heydude's panicking is that he didn't know anyone else had that information and wanted to help town ASAP, did you know?

No, I didn't know. BUT: Whoever sent the contract must have known. I understand that town!heydude very likely strongly believes whoever targeted him was anti-town, but for scum!heydude there's a very real possibility that whoever sent it was town, and thus had information that could be shared with town if he held onto it for too long.

Why is the possibility that Heydude is scum and worried that a townie sent the contract (forcing him to reveal it immediately) so hard to grasp?
Do you know he's town? Did you send the contract yourself, and thus find it difficult to envision someone calling him out for holding on to the information?

At this point, I'm not very concerned about heydude - more about this particular feature of your response.

@NJW2000:

Why is the possibility that Heydude is scum and worried that a townie sent the contract (forcing him to reveal it immediately) so hard to grasp?

Sure, it's possible. My stance is that I don't think that's true. I understand your argument towards me.

Do you know he's town? Did you send the contract yourself, and thus find it difficult to envision someone calling him out for holding on to the information?

No it's not 100%, but I'm still siding with the feeling he's not mafia. I'm generally going to be suspicious of most people, but having some anti-mafia feels isn't the end of the world. No I didn't send the contract. Whoever did this clearly doesn't want to claim or they would have.

NJW2000 there's some things I'd like to know what you think, what are your feelings towards dolores? Towards Vector? Towards Leafsnail? I'm pretty curious what you think of them.

This entire case is less compelling to me than the one on 4maskwolf in the sense that there's an outside possibility, however slim, of it being a long string of mistakes and miscommunications. Maybe ToonyMan was just wrong, then failed to grasp how it was pointed out to him, etc. Maybe neither I nor NJW2000 can read.
I don't think that's the case and I think that it's extremely unlikely that a better explanation than 'ToonyMan is scum' will be found, but I don't think I can be convinced that 4maskwolf is town unless he shows some interest in the alignment of other players.
I think it's very likely that the slip is a real scumslip and the responses are real attempts to move past it.

[dolores]

EBWOP for the second spoiler, 4th stanza:
instead all I get out of it is a townread on ICT.
instead all I get out of it is a townread on heydude6*.

[IcyTea31]

Dolores, you motherfucker.

ToonyMan is who I think is the best candidate to lynch today.

Spoiler: On Toony's case against me (click to show/hide)

Unless you're some lame-o who doesn't read their role PM before posting, everyone knows their alignment and possible scum buddies when the game starts. The fact is:
1. Town don't know anybody else's alignment
2. Mafia know their buddies' alignments

People will act differently whether they're town or mafia. Disputing this is the same as denying the game of mafia itself. The challenge is for the mafia players to pass off as town.

I did like this conversation he had with dolores, which is good groundwork for my dolores read. It also shows he understands the basic concept of what I was doing.

Seriously why?

Do you believe everything you said to dolores in the same post?

Yep.

If you think good town play is to reactionarly catch scum then you're wrong.

What do you mean by "reactionarily" here?

"If I act really dumb then scum will dogpile me and I'll have them dead to rights!"

No, you won't. Bad play will have town and scum all over you, and then you'll have to defend your bad play or apologize and stop voting yourself.

This, however, ignores that insight, claiming that town and scum don't act differently when attacking a player who's being intentionally provocative.

@IcyTea:

Town don't know my alignment, so they'll pursue me in good faith and, assuming competence, will eventually realize that I'm town and stop pursuing me after putting in just the right amount of effort. Scum know that I'm town, so they have to simulate the same, but don't have the same good faith and don't know for sure when to stop, either letting me off too easy or pushing even in the face of certain proof.

IcyTea, IcyTea, IcyTea. Why did you reveal your nefarious plot now? Luckyowl hasn't even posted yet. Why should town listen to anything an unjustified self-voter has to say?

I point this out, and am dismissed. Toony couldn't work with the self-contradiction, so he changed the subject.

It seems to me that the only reason you'd have no reason to listen to me is if I don't have knowledge that you don't as well.

Hahaha

Questioning the dismissal is dismissed. Is that a town thing to do?

@Nirur Torir:
Yeah, I think IcyTea is a good choice for scum too.

@IcyTea:
Are you absolutely sure? I assume you're referring to Beetlejuice here. Beelzebub is not exactly the same as Beetlejuice. I will say his name only twice to be safe.

After that dismissal, a "case", but zero interest in pursuing me for it. The comment to me is also beside the point of the contract case.

IcyTea stopped voting himself so I'm a bit happy about that too, but I don't believe their alignment one way or the other yet.

Read: "I don't care about their alignment". Why dismiss someone you're pursuing, if you don't have anything to say about their alignment yet?

IcyTea - dumbly voted themselves, contract logic makes me more suspicious of them then Heydude, feel like they're lying a lot

And the final read: an RVS case, logic that defies Occam's Razor (see next spoiler), and an ungrounded statement.

I was going to make a point here about Toony's response to the conract incident with NJW2000, but dolores said it better, and I completely agree with their analysis. Thanks for saving me time, I suppose.

[dolores]

EBWOP2/Post-Publishing Commentary:
I'm being reductive in the section after P3 (the 5th spoiler).
Toony gives two cases which would match with the scenario NJW had proposed. The first is that heydude6 is the contract sender, which is considered non-alignment-indicative. The second, which the second quote is taken from, is a combination of two separate cases (contract maker is totally independent 3rd party, contract maker is on scum team with heydude6). I am accusing ToonyMan (in the section after P3) of using circular logic to dismiss both the possibility that heydude6 and the the contract maker (possibly the same person) are both scum.

Dolores, you motherfucker.

After you said you had something while I was still writing the second spoiler I knew I had to push out the case on Toony so I could beat you to the press

[IcyTea31]

I question why you aren't doing anything to try to find my alignment

Getting a full read on you is a large project which I've put on the backburner until I can put my full attention on it. However, you've been active in generating information about yourself without me having to prod you, and have had several thoughts similar to mine, which hints that we're working from largely the same mindsets.

Also, I'm surprised he didn't spend more time away from the game on christmas but maybe he did and just has had a busy time, whatever.

I've been playing on my laptop at my parents' house (not having a mouse really slows me down, by the way). I've played D&D, I've had fancy xmas meals, I've completed a jigsaw puzzle, I've watched Babylon 5 off DVD. All that has nothing to do with the game, so I've just let it speak for itself in absences a couple hours long each.

[NJW2000]

FoU:

If you think IcyTea's scummy enough that you wouldn't mind Tric executing a nightkill on them, why aren't you voting IcyTea currently? The Day's getting closer and closer to ending, we ought to figure out who we want to lynch, even if we still have some leeway.

I don't think IcyTea's scummy, per se. He just seems to have intentionally played the daygame in a way that would destroy a lot of town goodwill - and I don't just mean the self-vote. It's almost like he's daring us to lynch him. As such, I'm unwilling to do so right now, unless on the basis of mechanical information. I want to lynch the person I find most likely to be scum.

TricMagic executing them on the other hand would give town mechanical information, as well as remove the person playing in what I perceive an unconstructive way, without potentially wasting the lynch. Note to anyone skimming: I have no evidence that Tric could do this.


Vector: thanks for the clarification post. I appreciate that writing that much takes a good deal of time and energy. This does help explain the mindset which produced the defence I was asking you about.


Toonyman:

Spoiler: post spoilered for brevity (click to show/hide)

@NJW2000:

Why is the possibility that Heydude is scum and worried that a townie sent the contract (forcing him to reveal it immediately) so hard to grasp?

Sure, it's possible. My stance is that I don't think that's true. I understand your argument towards me.

Do you know he's town? Did you send the contract yourself, and thus find it difficult to envision someone calling him out for holding on to the information?

No it's not 100%, but I'm still siding with the feeling he's not mafia. I'm generally going to be suspicious of most people, but having some anti-mafia feels isn't the end of the world. No I didn't send the contract. Whoever did this clearly doesn't want to claim or they would have.

No, I... this isn't what I meant. I'm not asking for your heydude read, I'm asking why your first townread on heydude for sharing info didn't consider the fact that scum!heydude would have an equal incentive to share the info.

A previous town read on heydude would of course have framed his actions in a townie light, but this seems circular.


FoU:

NJW2000: Of all the cases going on right now, which one looks the most likely to hit a mafia player to you?

I'm liking the case on Toonyman right now, as beautifully set out by dolores and IcyTea. Bandwagon, ho!

NJW2000 there's some things I'd like to know what you think, what are your feelings towards dolores? Towards Vector? Towards Leafsnail? I'm pretty curious what you think of them.

dolores? still suspicious of them, mostly based on a gut read from their stuff early in the day. They have been doing some useful work in the thread, and they're voting you, so I'm putting those doubts aside for now.

Vector: so far they haven't done much to draw suspiscion, has been helping discussion. Seems like a pretty strong player though, wouldn't bet on myself catching scum!Vector. Null read.

Leafsnail? Not much, at present. I haven't got a read on them. I don't think the people saying he hasn't done a huge amount in the thread are completely wrong - their activity has been a bit thin on the ground. This is however D1 on a day with a great deal of mechanical craziness, and just reading the thread takes some work - I've been carefully skipping several discussions just because I can't focus on everything at once. Additionally, I think his first question on Tric and later questions on Vector have been quite insightful. I feel his low engagement would be a very weak reason for a lynch, but a reason nonetheless - we just have many better reasons.

...if it seems like I'm more paranoid about these three players than the rest, I'm not. I just don't like townreading people.

Why did you want to know these things?


TricMagic:

Tricmagic: You seem fairly certain you'll die today. That may not in fact be a losing position. As far as I understand the comment system, we can seriously mess with the game, and possibly even your wincon if it's thirdparty, via the comments ability (correct me if I'm wrong), provided we know your role and alignment. How would you feel about a deal in which you help town further somehow, perhaps by giving up your hats, and we try to change your wincon with comments so that you can still win after dying?

Bastard stuff, to be sure, but as far as I can tell it might be possible.

I know you have a lot on your plate this game, but this offer still stands. It's not much, but it might be something. You do now seem motivated by a genuine desire to help Town, and I think we should reward that.


Not going to post a readslist, as I don't have a strong enough grasp on the situation to give an insightful look into fifteen other players. Finding it hard to remember that NQT or 4mask exist, for example. Will reread bits of the thread that interest me, have spent too long typing my replies and not enough time studying what other people have said.

[IcyTea31]

I'm liking the case on Toonyman right now, as beautifully set out by dolores and IcyTea. Bandwagon, ho!

In the same post, you say you don't trust either me or dolores. Are you just bandwagoning, or did you reach the same conclusions on your own?

[dolores]

You do now seem motivated by a genuine desire to help Town, and I think we should reward that.

Occam's razor for "Tric has a genuine desire to help Town" is just"Tric is town", in which case killing him doesn't help the town. Do you have a reason to think that he's actually an anti-town alignment (in the sense that town needs him dead to win) and not just a player who is willing to throw out the daygame in order to play with a shiny toy?

[4maskwolf]

PFP

We were saving this in case Icy’s early game shenanigans got him in too much hot water, but since the wagons have moved on we’ve agreed to claim D1 to prevent WIFOM.

Icy tea and I are masons.

[dolores]

Icy tea and I are masons.

So what, has all the scumhunting you've coordinated just happened to come out of your mouth and that's why you never followed up on it?
Do you actually know that you know each other's alignments?